Luck advantage in practice

[khorboth]

I have a few practical & theoretical questions about the Luck advantage for the general forum community.

1) how do you use Luck in your games?

2) how useful is Luck in your games?

3) What are your opinions on how my group has been using luck?

4) What are your opinions on how I'm thinking of using luck?

A little background: My group tends toward role-play heavy and rules-light games. About 95% of die rolls are combat related with most encounters being purely narrative & role-playing. This is consistent across all genres except DF where there are more challenges and less buildup. We play a wide variety of genres from steampunk to fantasy to Star Wars to supers. We find this frequency of rules reference and die rolling to be generally agreeable.

We found keeping track of the Luck timer to be annoying enough that no players were willing to take the advantage. Especially since an hour or two may well pass without making a die roll. So, we changed the way it works:

CURRENT HOUSE RULE:
The GM estimates the end time. Total number of luck uses is tallied. The character is given that many uses. So, someone with regular luck at a 4-hour session gets four uses of luck. They can use them all in a 5-minute span if the situation arises. In practice, luck is mostly used to negate critical hits on PCs or critical failures by PCs and it is rare that all of the luck uses are used in a session. Occasionally, some bartering is done with these luck uses as well. The GM may offer, "If you burn a use of luck, you get to choose which potion broke when you dropped your pack." We acknowledge that this makes luck substantially more powerful, but it doesn't seem to have been a big deal. It now sees some play, but not more than one or two characters per game.

I'm considering changes for two reasons. 1) Luck potions have become really overpowered, particularly for battle. 2) when sessions go over the expected time, players occasionally ask for more uses of Luck and things are a little weird.

PROPOSED HOUSE RULE:
People with luck start with one use in the bank and then accumulate more every [time increment] as the game goes on. This lowers the power closer to where it is in RAW, though is still clearly more powerful. It allows us to simply consult a clock to figure out how many uses of luck someone has instead of keeping a timer going, and we don't have to estimate quitting time. It pretty well solves the luck potion problem as the potion will wear off not long after getting all of its mojo, and they aren't predictable enough to line up before battle.

[ericthered]

I often have to deal with luck in play by post. I usually either make it game time or have it refresh after each "Encounter/Scene/minor milestone".



I see luck on a LOT of my PC's. Generally, it helps the game move along by letting the players take risks. A player with luck will often aggressively charge their foes, eventually get hit, and then use luck to reroll it and retire from battle to let someone else do the riskiest stuff. This is particularly true when attacking quantities of mooks.



My games have enough down time between combats and short enough combats that once per combat is usually sufficient for tracking. I also hold short (2 hour sessions) when I do live games, so we've usually got an eye on the clock.

[Kelly Pedersen]

When building characters, I take Luck quite frequently - to me, it's an almost-essential building block of a cinematic hero, even ones who aren't necessary considered particularly "lucky" in-universe. By allowing a character to avoid the critical failures and just slip-ups that plague someone who must rely on pure probability, it helps cover that feeling of "this character is just more skilled than others", in a way that doesn't necessarily require huge skill levels. And in my own GMing, I encourage people to take it all the time.

As for the difficulty of tracking uses, I find it's not too annoying. Many of my games are run online these days, using something like Discord or Skype, and in those cases, we just put a note in chat when we use Luck, which keeps track nicely. Outside that, we either try to note when it was used, and if we forget, we estimate.

As to your house rule, I think it's definitely workable. Allowing Luck to "stack" is more potent, certainly. On the other hand, I think it could lead to players being more likely to burn it up on things like getting a success - there's a psychological factor, I think, in seeing "hey, I have three uses of Luck handy!" that makes it more likely for you to spend 1 or 2. But the really potent and frequently lifesaving uses of Luck aren't in getting a success, I feel, they're in avoiding critical failures, or succeeding on reactive rolls like defenses and resistances. So something that lets you use Luck a few times in rapid succession, but means you're not as likely to have uses of it handy for succeeding in a defense, is probably balanced.

Another option, which has worked well in a couple of play-by-post games I've been in on various forums, is to give Luck uses in a "scene", rather than on a real-world time limit, with regular Luck giving one use per scene, Extraordinary Luck giving 2, and Ridiculous Luck giving 3-4.

[weby]

For long time we used the standard luck rules with only modification being that the times are longer for the high point value luck.

Luck is essential for any competent character as things like critical failures happen way too often otherwise.

Every character has worked hard to acquire higher levels of luck as it is seen as such a powerful thing.

I personally see Luck as the most important advantage of them all and would not build a 50+ point character without it.

As for a luck pool. We very recently changed to Impulse control(Pyramid 3/100) instead of luck , fated and such abilities in my current high power fantasy campaign. So far it has worked well. You may want to take a look at it as an alternative.

[Hide]

1) How do you use Luck in your games?

I deal with luck a lot. Its main function is making saving rolls against unexpected situations (enemy critical successes, bad rolls) or bad plans (penalized rolls) due to absence of mind or stuff regarding overconfidence on the player’s side.

2) How useful is Luck in your games?

Very useful, especially when your team is led and/or supported by several Leeroy Jenkins. And as ericthered said, it lets you take risks more freely (when your head is cold).

3) What are your opinions on how my group has been using luck?

It is not bad if they do not pick luck, it is just their choice. You shouldn’t invite them to take it if they do not want to take it. And they should take it by your recommendation, if you tell them in advance “this is going to be a very dangerous setting”.

If you are heavily narrative, does it mean that you seldom roll dice (or that you do not roll dice at all)? Because luck stands for dice rolls. When my settings get into narratives, the players are not exempt/forbidden from making dice rolls (diplomacy checks, detect lies, public speaking or any other savior or social or professional skill). What’s going on in your situation?

4) What are your opinions on how I'm thinking of using luck?

It is kind of weird. If you don’t put luck to work… it is not the problem of the advantage, it is the player’s.
If your player picks “see invisible”, but the setting has very few invisible creatures (and you told him) it is… it was the player’s choice. If you a character picks appearance very beautiful, but she wears a mask all of the time and also works in places it won’t necessarily work (i.e. fighting against aliens)… it is the players choice.

You do not have to make a house rule just because a player picked it and cannot use it properly. But maybe you could give them a chance for re-design. On the other hand, just could simply give everybody in the world 3 chances to magically correct whatever action they want as long as it is immediate. Then that could be a 0 point feature.

Alternatively, you could apply the “repeated attempts rule”. More or less it says: “if you fail, you can try again at -2”. And you the GM, can decide how much and in which situations.

On your potions and bag example… Would you really drop your bag if you had the legendary crystal goblet in it?

If they declare they drop their bag in a certain fashion, first I would let them roll dice against DX, if they pass they are safe. If they fail the goblet breaks… then they roll luck. If they pass, everything is OK.

If they declare they drop the bag in a certain fashion, and miss the DX roll and then fail the luck’s rolls… the goblet breaks; however, there is another advantage that might save the goblet… It is called serendipity (look for it, it is like a “narrative version” of luck (it does not require dice roll). It is worth 15 points per level).

Also, if they just drop their bag, the bag falls and delicate stuff breaks. Unless they have serendipity, and if it has not been used yet… then their stuff is safe.

Did I get you right? Luck potions?

I would ban “luck potions”. In my perspective, luck is an innate privilege; if you did not pick it when you designed your character, then the chance is gone… Unless, some major event such as “being blessed by a god” comes into play; then you have another chance. Advantages such as luck, serendipity and destiny should be innate for a PC.

Luck is very powerful (also serendipity). And it has several modifiers to work in shorter spans of time. If they do not pay for it, then I would not allow it. Using luck 4 times in a row because you estimate that will be the length of your session or accumulating luck in a bank, seems very lenient to me even as a house rule, because it may entice into doing reckless things.

- Hide

[Hide]

Originally Posted by Kelly Pedersen

Another option, which has worked well in a couple of play-by-post games I've been in on various forums, is to give Luck uses in a "scene", rather than on a real-world time limit, with regular Luck giving one use per scene, Extraordinary Luck giving 2, and Ridiculous Luck giving 3-4.

This one is very nice.

[khorboth]

Originally Posted by Hide

If you are heavily narrative, does it mean that you seldom roll dice (or that you do not roll dice at all)?

It depends somewhat on the GM as we pass around the duties. Sometimes we'll each roll about every 15 minutes, sometimes no dice are rolled by anybody for 3 hours. Generally, the GM will be familiar enough with each character to play NPCs reactions and run successes and failures as the plot dictates with fairness toward PC abilities. This is a trust we have built up.

Originally Posted by Hide

On your potions and bag example… Would you really drop your bag if you had the legendary crystal goblet in it?

To clarify the example, I believe he dropped the bag in order to then catch something much more valuable but didn't have time to drop the bag with finesse. The GM ruled that one potion was going to break and allowed luck to choose which one would break. Maybe serendipity would be a better fit, but it's an example of our actual use.

Originally Posted by Hide

Did I get you right? Luck potions?

Yup. Magic page 216. You get luck for 2d hours. Our DF pass-around game tries to stick to RAW pretty closely, so everybody likes to buy them in town. Don't leave Villageton without it.

[AlexanderHowl]

I generally like grittier campaigns with a cinematic tone, so I change Luck from one use per hour to 6 uses per session (Extraordinary Luck receives 12 uses per session).

[Maz]

First of I would advice against players being able to collect luck into a big pool, but you already decided to change this. So just a thumbs up from here.


Secondly I have used luck many different ways. Personally I think the most fun was when it was "uses per real world hour". And not "1 hour between uses but every whole hour you get one use. So you could use it at 11:58 and again at 12:02.
This was fun because the players who had it felt like they "wasted" their luck if they hadn't used it before the hour came and so they tended to use the luck on less important rolls. This -to me- was a benefit as it meant the PC was generally just more lucky and not just "lucky to avoid crit fails" but also lucky all the time throughout the day.
It also meant that in really big fights -which can take more than an hour of real time play- they got to use their luck more than once.
You might think it could lead to players deliberately stalling time to get a luck roll more in a combat but that only ever happened once and the player was so overt about it that it was just fun.

Originally Posted by khorboth

Occasionally, some bartering is done with these luck uses as well. The GM may offer, "If you burn a use of luck, you get to choose which potion broke when you dropped your pack." We acknowledge that this makes luck substantially more powerful, but it doesn't seem to have been a big deal. It now sees some play, but not more than one or two characters per game.

I do this as well and even though it's not part of the description I think it's perfectly fair and within the spirit of the advantage. It is after all called Luck.

I tend to be even more open with it. Like if a player is trying to do something that really is more about luck than skill I allow them to "use their luck" to get it to happen. And very often if something bad happens to a random character the PC with luck can avoid it by using their luck.



I have also before allowed PCs to buy "luck points" which are 3 cp "one use only" uses of luck. The point value is based on Luck 15 pts and "one use only" being 1/5 the price. This also worked fine but had the unfortunate effect of Players saving them up and burning all in big battles. So we had to put in rules that you could only use them once per hour, and then they got less interesting for the players and much just bought normal luck instead.


...I am currently playing a gritty action sci-fi action game. And for some reason none of the PCs have luck. No matter how much I try to persuade them they would rather "Just raise my IQ one instead it's only 5 pts more" or "Raise these two skills instead" and so on. I think the first time one of them gets it the rest will quickly follow suite.

[johndallman]

Luck is really quite useful in the games I run and play. Some characters are created with it; I've found I like adding it later as a way of becoming more generally competent. Since we don't tend to have lots of combat, it also gets used for investigations and social rolls.

We just use the GURPS RAW luck. I have a large clock on the wall in my living room, where we play, and it's easy to scribble down the time at which you used Luck on notepad or character sheet.